The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chemistry

Some people are totally missing the point of this book, like some of the negative reviews below. (Insult to your intelligence? If you're so smart you'd know that you're not the target audience of this book.) This book is for those who are either doing General Chem for the first time or coming back after a long hiatus. The author provides the basic fundementals of general chemistry in a good plain english text that is meant to complement, not replace your textbook. This book gave me a great boost in Chem class when I used it that way, usually by reading this book first when a new topic came up so as to get a synopsis and then going to the textbook for the gory details. This book goes a long way towards making Chemistry less intimidating and soon that big course textbook is not so threatening anymore.

Since it had been 37 years since I had taken a chemistry class, I was a little afraid of doing well. I got this book early on, and it was a HUGE help. It was written by a teacher who really knew his stuff. He encourages you to learn how to work the problems versus letting your fear take over and you feel forced the memorize them. I recommend this book VERY highly.

There's never been a student who was as big an idiot as me before. I couldn't balance equations, didn't know what a mole was, and couldn't even stay awake in my class. And I'm a college student! This book was great. It covered the main topics we did in class and got me through without any problems. I read the reviews for this book here and don't know why people said the editing wasn't good. I found one mistake, but nearly all of the time I had problems with the book it was because *I* messed up and not the book. Maybe the other reviewers should check their work LOL!

I'm on my knees thanking God for this book every night. I recently needed to brush up on my Chemistry. (I had Chem I in college.) I tried two other books before this one and they both sucked. The first one was Barron's Chemistry the Easy Way. HA! It was extremely confusing and poorly edited (wrong answers in the chapter tests). The second one was Chemistry Demystified and while it was much easier to follow, it also was poorly edited (lots of typos, mistakes, etc.) After buying two really crappy books, I was ready to pull my hair out. But that's when I found The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chemistry. While I did have a Chemistry class in college, I struggled through most of it. And I am really bad at math. So words like factor-label conversion and significant figures sent me into a complete panic. But the way Mr. Guch writes is so easy to follow and so non-threatening! Not to mention funny! He tells you exactly what you need to know and exactly how to do the calculations you need to do. I cannot tell you how much I absolutely love this book. I am THISCLOSE to randomly spreading these books around anywhere struggling chemistry students live. If you or your child is having trouble with Chemistry, PLEASE get this book. You will not be sorry.

I bought this book for my daughter Tiffany who has just started chemistry in highschool. At first getting her to do her homework was like pulling teeth, but since purchasing this book her chemistry home work is a breeze. Great explanations, and easy to follow. I would definitly reccomend this book!